Video Card Help

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Video Card Help

Postby DeusTrismegistus on Thu Jun 05, 2008 9:45 am

Ok I got a pretty new comp at home w/ 3 gig quad core processor, 3 gig ram, 500 gig HD, and a Radeon 2400 XT graphics card. I got a new game, Age of Conan, and my framerates blow chunks. I have windows vista 32 bit and there is currently some issues with the game not using all of the GPU on ATI cards. I was looking at upgrading and I was thinking of getting either 2 sapphire Radeon HD 3650 cards hooked up with crossfire, or a single sapphire radeon toxic HD 3870 card. I would need a 450 watt power supply on either and I am not sure how to check what my comp came with. I am also not sure if the better single card or the dual cards would run better. Any advice is appreciated.
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Re: Video Card Help

Postby TaoJoannes on Thu Jun 05, 2008 1:31 pm

Ummm.

Take up chess?
oh qué una tela enredada que tejemos cuando primero practicamos para engañar
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Re: Video Card Help

Postby Darth Rock&Roll on Thu Jun 05, 2008 1:38 pm

If you are running vista, it's likely that your graphics are on the cpu as a shared process. THis is common with vista machines.

YOu will need to be careful in buying a graphics card.

nvidia cards for next gen games need to be at least 800 series to play pretty much any of them. an 8800 gt or an 8800 ultra will rock your gaming world

vram is insignificant, no gaming company produces threads that will use more than 256 m of vram. There are no games that use a 512 chip and 725 chips are overboard and a waste.

It's al about shader models, vertices and bus speeds.

ati or nvidia cards are best when in the over 600 series and watch out for suffixes like LE SE etc. XT is good but only if the card is a 600 or higher in the ati series.

in nvidia, 7800, 8600,8800 and higher cards will be good for at least another year or two.

your main problem is goin to be vista which still has many drivers issues and has a tendency to assume that everything should be cpu bound.

oddly enough, you can thank flight sim x for that little tidbit.

here's a list i more or less agree with
http://internetgames.about.com/od/hardw ... ocards.htm
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Re: Video Card Help

Postby kenneth delves on Thu Jun 05, 2008 5:17 pm

I love it when you talk geek.
Make note : memorize for next time I'm surrounded by computer whizzes
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